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Monday, October 6, 2014

A secure way to enable access to projects is through the use of fingerprint scanning. This tutorial uses the 5v TTL unit from Sparkfun. The scanner does not come with a cable, so make sure you also order the JST SH cable. The wires from the JST SH cable are too fine to plug into the Arduino directly, so we are using a solderless breadboard to make the connections with jumper wires.

No resistor is necessary for 5v use, regardless of what the sample sketch's suggest.

The sketch uses SoftSerial, so the pins on the Arduino can be changed in the sketch.

You will need to download the examples and libraries, then upload the Enroll sketch to make the unit recognize your finger print. Follow the instructions in the serial monitor, then upload the IDfinger sketch. Now when you scan your finger, the serial monitor will show "Verified" (with the appropriate ID number) or "Finger not found" if it's not recognized. All you need to do is to enable a relay if a correct fingerprint is detected, and possibly write a entry line to a SD card with time and date stamp for a entry log.